1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to systems and methods for processing waste and new product into new useful material, and more particularly to processing broken tempered glass waste product into useful smoothed glass pieces useful in, for example, lapidary construction, art, and functional interior and exterior decorating.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Currently, the benefits of recycling materials are well known. For example, many common household materials, such as paper, metals, and glass can be recycled for re-use. However, the cost of recycling varies depending upon the material, and for some materials, such as tempered glass, the cost can be particularly high.
Glass recycling is costly because glass often is recycled for a generic use. As such, industries which use generic recycled glass typically require the glass to be largely contaminant free so as to be put to a variety of uses. Household and industrial waste recycling programs generally do not discriminate between glass and ceramic recyclables, or between glasses of different colors. As such, glass recyclables collected by recycling authorities tend to be a mixture of different colors of glasses and ceramics, as well as contaminants such as foil or paper labels and any non-recyclable refuse that finds its way into a bottle or jar or other refuse in a recycling bin.
To reduce the costs of generic glass recycling, specific uses for recycled glass have been developed. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,284,186 to Hansen discloses using comminuted, recycled, glass powders as filler in molded plastic parts. The recycled glass powder used in Hansen has non-uniform, rounded edges and is free from contaminants, such as grinding compounds, metals, inorganic, and organic waste materials. Hansen discloses using the recycled glass powder filler with a variety of different thermoplastics and thermosetting plastics commonly used to in injection molding and blow molding of plastic parts.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,409,500 B2 to Georgantas discloses tempered glass pieces that have been baked three times in a temperature and oxygen controlled environment. The glass is made from specially-formulated, tempered glass pieces formed around a gas pipe. Georgantas' specially-formulated, baked three times “special” glass is disclosed as being broken to form smooth-edged pieces not requiring additional work or processing. Further disclosure by Georgantas describes that the specially formulated tempered glass and is baked at least three times at temperatures of about 1200° Fahrenheit for 30 minutes or more. Additionally, the broken pieces of the tempered glass are about 10 mm in size and contain few, if any sharp edges. Major differences in Georgantas' disclosure and the present invention is that the present invention uses only standard tempered glass, typically as found in a glass foundry. The standard tempered glass of the present invention does not require any special formulation, nor does it require baking more than once as Georgantas does. The present invention requires additional fabrication or processing time as the standard tempered glass breaks into irregular fragments that have sharp edges and burs that require finishing in order to be handled safely.
One type of glass waste product is broken glass. In general, once a glass pane is broken, there is little use for the broken shards or the remainder of the broken glass pane. Broken tempered glass, such as window shields (windshields are laminated) for automobiles, presents a particular recycle problem because the resultant glass comprises small, sharp, glass pieces that are fire resistant.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for systems and method for recycling broken, normal tempered glass waste product into smoothed glass pieces useful in, for example, lapidary construction, art, and functional interior and exterior decorating. The systems and methods should provide a high efficiency in creating the smoothed glass pieces, and should not require specially-formulated glass or non-standard tempering processes.